During the 2008 election cycle, the Las Vegas office of the organization ACORN was looking for ways to motivate its best canvassers who were collecting voter registration cards, former Field Director Christopher Edwards said.

Edwards, testifying at a court hearing, said he created a bonus incentive program called “Blackjack” or “21+” that awarded an extra $5 to any canvasser who collected at least 21 registration cards.

His immediate supervisor, Amy Busefink, welcomed the idea and he bragged about its success on conference calls with his peers around the country, Edwards said.

But paying canvassers for the number of registration cards they collect violates state laws because it encourages canvassers to turn in phony forms, says the state Attorney General’s Office.

Edwards, Busefink and ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, were each charged with 13 felony counts in connection with the Blackjack program and because the organization allegedly required an illegal quota of cards or else canvassers could lose their jobs.

Edwards testified on Tuesday as the prosecution’s key witness in a preliminary hearing in Las Vegas Justice Court.

Last month, he accepted a deal to plead guilty to two gross misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters.

He will receive probation for cooperating with the attorney general.

Busefink and ACORN representatives deny they ever knew about the program and say Edwards acted independently.

As for the quota, the state is misrepresenting the organization’s “target” or “goal” of 20 cards per shift, said Clare Crawford deputy political director for the national organization.

Canvassers collected 13 cards per day on average and were not terminated for failing to collect 20 cards, she said.

“Our policies were set at the national office. People had to get approved for increases in pay or the other bonuses had to be approved,” she said. “Ms. Busefink was at some point in the Nevada office, became aware of (the Blackjack program) and told him to stop. He said he would. But when she left, he continued to do it.”

Canvassers were paid $8 or $9 per hour and could be given bonuses for driving, taking the bus or working in extreme heat.

Those bonuses are legal because they are not tied to registration cards, said prosecutor Conrad Hafen, Chief Deputy Attorney General.

Edwards testified that ACORN encouraged him to create bonus programs during a training session in Dallas in 2008.

“That was part of the field director training — telling us how we can use incentives to maximize our registration numbers,” he said. “I ran the programs ACORN taught me to run.”

Canvassers worked about four out of six hours per day in the field collecting cards. Edwards testified that some canvassers could get about 17 cards in less than two hours, then stop working but continue to get paid.

The incentive program was intended to motivate them to collect during the full four hours, he said.

“It was really just showing that they were being recognized for doing exceptional work,” he said.

The program was not written down in a memo or manual but, Edwards said, Busefink approved the plan in a phone conversation in late July or early August 2008, just before it was implemented.

Edwards said Busefink responded by suggesting the number be set at 26 for the bonus. Busefink, who worked out of Florida, visited the Las Vegas office in August 2008 for about three days to check on operations.

Although the Blackjack program was not put on paper, it was written on an erasable whiteboard in the office, Edwards said.

The program was explained on the board along with names of canvassers who achieved the goal when Busefink visited, Edwards said.

Edwards said he couldn’t recall if they talked about the program but was sure Busefink never told him to stop offering it.

“I was never told by Amy Busefink nor anyone else to stop that program,” he said. “Nor was I ever told by Amy Busefink or anyone else that there was any legal jeopardy concerning that program.”

A few days before the Blackjack program began, Edwards sent an e-mail to Busefink and Kimberly Olsen, ACORN’s director of voter registration, about an incentive program for canvassers that collected a certain number of Spanish-language cards. Olsen sent a one-word response: “No.”

He replied that most communications within ACORN were conducted by phone and that Busefink had approved the program in one of the phone conversations.

Defense attorneys focused on the possibility that Edwards had a grudge against ACORN for allegedly offering him a higher position than he achieved. Edwards said he was told initially that he would be hired as a political director, a position above field director.

While training in Miami shortly after he was hired, however, he learned he would be in the lower position.

After spending one day as field director in Las Vegas, he learned his position was actually as a political organizer, a step below field director.

The experience of giving orders all day only to learn he didn’t have the authority to do so was “humiliating,” he said.

After about six weeks, he was promoted to field director, a position in which he remained until the end of the voter registration period.

Prosecutors also presented the chief investigator from the Secretary of State’s Office and three former ACORN employees.

Two of those employees, Joseph Terry and Dwain Dennie, were canvassers who said they were told they had to collect 20 cards a day or they would be fired.

Both also said they collected the Blackjack bonus numerous times.

Earlier in the day, the state’s chief investigator into alleged voter fraud by the ACORN organization said two regional supervisors knew of the allegedly illegal bonus program and that the organization instituted a quota policy for its canvassers, based on computer documents obtained last year in a search of ACORN’s Las Vegas office.

Colin Haynes, an investigator with the Secretary of State’s Office, testified that the investigation failed to prove the organization committed fraud but turned up evidence of the quota system and bonuses paid to canvassers if they exceeded the quota of 20 registration cards per shift.

Attorneys for Busefink and ACORN said they didn’t expect to call witnesses during the preliminary hearing, which was continued to Wednesday afternoon.

Judge William Jansen said he would make his decision following arguments on whether to send the case to district court, where it could go to trial.

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Unconstitutional. The notion that people who gather signatures can not be held to the same standards as private sector businesses, salespeople, telemarketers. CACI, blackwater, Haliburton, Lockheed etc. we have seen all sorts or defence contractors, bribe, kickback and so on, and their still doing business with the government.

What about the big sex scandal at Hillsdale college, that is promoted on hate talk radio??

Acorn was flaky, I hope the new organizations that rise up will be more effective.

And this comes as a surprise to anyone. What else could anyone else expect from a liberal biased organization that promotes separation and receives free money to help enable their lunatic voting pool?

If this were an organization that promoted white people the liberals would be out in masses protesting and demanding prosecution and all funding would've removed already. CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, NPR, Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, Pelosi, Obama, and rest of the democratic lunatics would be screaming bloody murder.

Amazing how Obama has remained quite on this and hasn't used his pen to instantly remove Acorn funding and he hasn't donated the monies his campaign received from the PAC.

Not only is Feldblum a former legal counsel for the ACLU and the pro-homosexual Human Rights Campaign, she is a CO-AUTHOR of the ENDA bill that she could soon be enforcing!

And what is Feldblum's agenda? Incredibly, Feldblum says that when there is a conflict between religious freedom and homosexual rights, "...society should come down on the side of protecting identity liberty of LGBT people" (LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered).

In this view, YOUR religious beliefs will take second place to someone else's desire for aberrant sexual activities or gender changes!

She opposed Liberty Counsel's case in which we represented a Christian couple who owned a bed and breakfast in Vermont and who refused to participate in a same-sex union ceremony in their own home.

Feldblum stated: "Thus, for all my sympathy for the evangelical Christian couple who wish to run a bed and breakfast from which they can exclude unmarried straight couples and all gay couples, this is a point where I believe an inevitable choice between liberties must come into play. In making that choice, I believe society should come down on the side of protecting identity liberty of LGBT people." Unbelievable!

In Feldblum's desired workplace, Bob the receptionist can wear a dress and lipstick to work and designate his restroom of choice, yet the owner of the business - even a Christian business owner - will not be able to say a thing about it!

If this latest Obama nominee has her way, even the Boy Scouts would not be able to protect its young members from contact with openly homosexual leaders...

Feldblum is on record as saying that the Boy Scouts should not have won their case at the United States Supreme Court that affirmed their right to free association.

+ + Feldblum and ENDA will put every employee, business ownersand even churches and non-profit ministries on the wrong side of the law

The nomination of Chai Feldblum makes the ENDA battle in Congress even more critical. If she is confirmed and ENDA is passed, we should brace ourselves for the most radical, anti-faith interpretation of this bill that is even possible.

And we wonder why ACORN supports their sick ways. Liberals are destroying America!

so much hate-- how much of this is what you know vs. what is TOLD to you? People who think liberally are not your enemies..just people who have a different opinion than you do. Stop being so paranoid and hateful..you might be surprised how much happier it will make you.